French gay-marriage plans stir parenthood debate

By Lori Hinnant -
Associated Press -
Thursday, January 31, 2013

PARIS (AP) — The French are all for sex and all for family — so long as you’re having sex to create one. Anything dealing with assisted reproduction makes a sizable portion of them uncomfortable, as the president’s plans to legalize gaymarriage have unexpectedly exposed.

The debate over whether society and science are overreaching when it comes to parenthood has sent thousands into the streets, turned the bridges over the Seine into billboards and prompted charges that women’s bodies will soon be for rent in a society that still has surprisingly deep conservative roots.

President Francois Hollande’s promise to legalize gaymarriage was seen as relatively uncontroversial when it first came up as a campaign pledge. Then, as the debate began this week, his justice minister quietly issued an order to grant French birth certificates for children born to surrogates abroad.

The news reopened a raw and unwelcome national debate on fertility treatments, surrogacy and adoption. Assisted reproduction is off-limits to all but heterosexual couples showing at least two years of companionship. Egg donation has been regulated nearly into nonexistence, and surrogacy of any kind is punishable by a prison term.

Infuriated opponents pounced, accusing the Socialist government of underhanded tactics to transform families. Despite France’s liberal attitudes and Socialist government, the country also has a strong Roman Catholic influence and prides itself on its strong support for traditional families.

When Justice Minister Christiane Taubira went before a raucous parliamentary session Wednesday to defend her order, half the lawmakers gave her an ovation and another sizable group tried to jeer her into silence.

“You’re encouraging methods that are illegal in our country, that are an attack on human dignity,” Jean-Francois Cope, the opposition leader, accused her on Wednesday. “Children become objects, objects that can be bought and sold.”

Ms. Taubira said the order was only a reflection of current citizenship law, not a new regulation that would lead to legalized surrogacy within France.

“It affirms French nationality; it doesn’t grant it,” she said, insisting that no one — from the president on down — wanted French surrogate mothers.

Facing unexpected opposition to their once-popular plans to legalize gaymarriage, Mr. Hollande’s Socialists in early January dropped plans to link the measure to relaxed restrictions on fertility treatments. And Ms. Taubira on Wednesday reiterated earlier denials of any plan to legalize surrogacy.

About 200 egg-donor babies and about 1,000 sperm-donor babies are born annually to French people, according to official government figures, with thousands of couples waiting for years for a chance to try.

One 40-year-old woman, recently divorced with a young son and hopes for another, decided there was no point in waiting for the rules to change. She found a clinic in Denmark to provide fertility treatments, scheduled an initial round and persuaded her French doctor to fudge some of the paperwork.

“He said, ‘It’s illegal,’ and I said, ‘Yes, it’s illegal in France, but not abroad,’” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of the social backlash.

She said three rounds of treatment in Denmark will cost 5,800 euros ($7,860), not including travel expenses. And she doesn’t dare tell her family, saying she’s afraid of their judgment. She does not yet know if her second round of treatment in Denmark succeeded.

In France, egg donors already must have children of their own and are not allowed reimbursement for many of the expenses related to the donation — including travel and childcare. Sperm donors face similar restrictions, including showing proof of prior fatherhood. In 2010, 299 men donated sperm in France.